Beauty Industry

Target Pays 1 Mill for Selling Allegedly Fake MAC

Buyers from the chain store in Australia may have been fooled by its distributor in the U.S.

Author Image

By: Jamie Matusow

Editor-in-Chief

Target has been ordered to pay MAC Cosmetics $1 million dollars in the settlement of a legal battle over the store’s sale of a range of allegedly fake MAC cosmetics in 2012.

Target will also run corrective advertising on the front page of its catalog, and on its website, for 30 days to state that the retailer couldn’t prove that the products were not fake. Estee Lauder Companies claimed they were counterfeits in 2012, and ordered Target to pull the products from its shelves.

Two Australian companies that sold the MAC cosmetics to Target have also agreed to pay $10,000 each to MAC.

Target has also launched its own legal action in the U.S. to discover where its MAC range was originally sourced from. It is believed that Target bought its potentially fake MAC from a U.S. middle man in Texas, who had ties to a makeup wholesaler in Arizona.

Keep Up With Our Content. Subscribe To Beauty Packaging Newsletters